A vaginal dilator is a conventional examination and operation instrument in gynecology and obstetrics for exposing examination or operation areas. A conventional vaginal dilator comprises an upper blade and a lower blade, which can be opened and closed and have a duckbilled shape. Keeping upper and lower blades dilated to a certain angle by means of a locating device or a dilating fixation device on the dilator, doctors can watch, examine and operate through the sight range, which is obtained by dilating the upper and lower blades. In fact, it reduces the exposed extent, leading to difficulty for examination or operation that the upper and lower blades are restricted by their own widths. The vaginal walls between two sides of the upper and lower blades backfill the dilated areas. It will bring more pain to a patient and also increase backfill of the vaginal walls that the dilated angle between the upper blade and the lower blade is increased, therefore, this is not a good countermeasure.
Directing at the above drawbacks in the prior art, the PCT international application No. PCT/AU98/00737 has disclosed a speculum. The solution suggested by this application is that a speculum comprises a main body with two dilating fingers 14A, 14B, which are connected at their respective proximal ends to the main body, a further dilating finger 28 extends between the above-mentioned fingers and is fixed to the main body, an actuator is pivotally connected to the main body, the actuator is formed with a dilating finger 70 which faces the fixed finger 28 locating between the fingers 14A and 14B. When the actuator is pivoted, this finger immediately starts to pivot away from the other fingers. After the actuator rotates a certain degree, it comes into contact with the inside of the fingers 14 near their proximal ends, so as to cause the distal ends of those fingers to move away from each other, Fingers 14A and 14B are hinged around a canted hinge axis so that they move in a combined motion upward and sideways when they are abutted by the actuator. Chinese patent No. 200620133849.7 has disclosed “a speculum having four blades used in gynecology.” The solution suggested is that the four blades are rotatably fixed on a handle in uniform distribution by means of pivots, which are connected to circle holes located on an upper portion of the handle, the simultaneous opening or closing of the four blades is performed by a controlling device provided by this patent. Chinese patent No. 200820080747.2 has disclosed “a speculum having several blades used in gynecology.” The difference from the former is that there may be three or four blades, but the means of connection to the handle is the same. Chinese patent No. 200620172721.1 has disclosed a “speculum for uterine neck having multiple pages.” The solution of the speculum disclosed in this patent is different from the ones in the above three patents, and includes an upper page of duckbill and a lower page of duckbill, and a pivot provided on a side of the lower page of duckbill and a rotating page connecting to the lower page of duckbill, so as to realize the vaginal expansion in three directions upward, downward and sideward.
The above four patents have made contributions to overcome the drawbacks in the prior art. However, there is a drawback existing in the former three patents that the side blades are all arranged on outside of the upper and lower blades and cannot be retracted into inside of the upper and lower blades, thereby causing pain to a patient when a dilator or speculum is inserted into a vagina; although the fourth patent has made up the drawback of the former three patents to a certain extent by providing a side blade inside a lower blade, there is a drawback of having only a side blade which acts only as an obstruction rather than dilating vaginal walls when used.
On the other hand, with rapid popularization of the electronic colposcopes, quite a number of women patients who get diseases of uterine neck need employing a loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) for cervical cancer precursor. A harmful smoke with an empyreumatic and unpleasant smell, which stimulates the throat, can generate when performing this operation, which affects the health of doctor and patient, and meanwhile obscures sight line of doctor.
Chinese patent application No. 200810107219.6 has disclosed “a disposable vaginal dilator having two protecting blades with discharging smoke type”, which includes upper and lower blades, a smoke pipe, which communicates with a smoke device, is provided on an inside of the upper blade, the upper and lower blades are provided with protecting wings, which can be ones with a type of elastic silicon sleeves, or a type of elastic aliform or a folding type similar to accordion. The wings act as barriers for preventing exposed vaginal walls between upper wing and lower wing from risk of suffering scorching hot and can not play the role of dilating vaginal walls, when performing the operation with the LEEP. The upper wing is provided with a smoke pipe, the smoke pipe is a pipe sealed around except both ends thereof being communicating with each other and does not have a channel cover, saying nothing of opening the channel cover. An operator can not install mini-instruments, such as LED, camera, etc., under looking in the eye.
Chinese patent application No. 00232603.5 has disclosed a “disposable vaginal speculum with a fasten-closing type”, in which an electric light source with an outgoing wire and a joint is provided on inside of an upper blade near the root thereof, the electric light source can connect to the lamp socket by screw, and a pipe for eliminating smoke is provided on a lower blade and a handle, Wherein the pipe for eliminating smoke can be made be integrated with the lower blade, besides that lower end of the smoke pipe connects to a negative pressure suction tube by a hosepipe, or a hard elbow can be fixed on the lower blade. There is a drawback for it that the electric light source with the outgoing wire and the joint present an unsafe risk as regards medical apparatus, even if a part of the source is not within inside of the sealed pipe, and does not possess the clinical applicability. If the electric light source is entirely installed within the pipe, because the pipe described in this patent and the pipe for eliminating smoke are both sealed around them rather than a close match of a channel cover which can be opened and closed with a channel of the pipe, up to now, such a long and bended pipe for eliminating smoke on the lower blade can not be made by means of a plastics mould and present the difficulty of demoulding, so as to limit the practical applicability.
Chinese patent application No. 200720038815.4 has disclosed a “vaginal dilator with a structure of discharging smoke”, the inside of upper duckbill blade is provided with a pipe for discharging smoke, and several through-holes are arranged on body of the pipe for discharging smoke, The through-holes are arranged on base of front end of the body of the pipe for discharging smoke, the distal end of which extends to tail of the duckbill. Although the structure described in this patent is more improved in comparison with the one having two pipes being sealed around them in that several through-holes are arranged on the body of the pipe for eliminating smoke, i.e., each of the through-holes is arranged at a distance on the pipe for discharging smoke, instead of the channel cover, which can be opened entirely, the “several through-holes” arranged on the vaginal dilator with the structure of discharging smoke can only be used for discharging smoke, does not possess the functions that the whole channel cover can be opened and the operator can rapidly and accurately install devices such as LED lamp, camera, etc., under looking in the eye, so as to increase a lot of clinical utility functions of the vaginal dilator, furthermore, there is only one pipe for discharging smoke, this is adverse to rapidly discharge toxic smoke, and also can not achieve the function and effect that the several pipe channels can discharge smoke in cooperation.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,048B1 has disclosed a vaginal dilator with a lateral walls retractor, the function of the lateral walls retractor is that the vaginal dilator is dragged under condition of keeping vaginal tissue loose in a lateral direction, and the retractor does not form a channel for discharging smoke.
in another aspect, with development of the clinical medicine, it is required that the positions to be examined and performed operations can be more clearly observed and are supplied with real-time images to meet needs of diagnosis and teaching, for this purpose, it is necessary to be required that a channel and a channel cover for installing devices of illumination or camera, etc, are provided within the vaginal dilator and openings are arranged on the front and back ends, in other words, Only when possessing the three essential elements, i.e., a channel, a channel cover and openings which are arranged on the front and back ends, it can be realized that the devices of illumination, camera, etc, can be installed accurately, reliably, rapidly and conveniently, and the clinic uses can be safe and effective.
Furthermore, up to now, there has been no a kind of vaginal dilator having side blades or upper and lower blades having accessorial blades, in which illumination as well as camera devices, etc, can be installed by providing channel, channel cover and openings being arranged on front and back ends thereof and which can discharge smoke with multi-purpose for one pipe, or simultaneous use for several pipes, or single use for each of the pipes.